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Quotes by Harish Iyer

Harish Iyer is an equal rights activist who is known for his campaigns for the rights of LGBT community, children, women, animals and survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Earlier he was featured on Aamir Khan’s talk show Satyamev Jayate in an episode on the issue of child sexual abuse. British actor Stephen Fry elatedly tweeted “You’re a hell of a guy!” after interviewing Harish for his BBC documentary “OUT THERE” and in 2016, Harish and his family starred with Ellen Page in her web series Gaycation.

“Why do we need to put people in brackets of “Man” and “Woman”. There are genders beyond the genders we know.”

“I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, so linked my sexuality to abuse, so was confused for a long long time. Though I felt sexual towards men, I never acknowledged myself as gay. Finally, I tried having a one night stand with a woman, but it didn’t stand (Aiyooo!) That’s when I realized that I should stand up for what I feel innately without attributing it to anything. I didn’t want to live a life that the world wants me to. I didn’t want to live a lie. I started acknowledging that I love men. That I am Gay.”

“Only when I met several men who had been abused in childhood and were heterosexual did I realise that sexual abuse and sexual orientation were not related. Also, some logical reasoning: if all boys who were abused became gay, more than 50 per cent of Indian men would be gay.”

– Harish Iyer.

“With every passing day, I became more sure about my sexuality. I loved women though, and I wanted to have a family. I wanted to be sure that I could have sex with a woman, so I visited a commercial sex worker in Singapore. It was a one-night stand, but it didn’t ‘stand’. That’s when I realised I should be standing up for what I need to stand up for. I came back to India and told Mom. She resisted, but I insisted, and she gave in with a word that I will not come out to anybody. As you can see, I am not good at keeping some promises.”

– Harish Iyer.

“Coming Out is often seen as an ‘event’. It is not. You are correct when you call it a ‘process’; it’s a deeply personal process. Coming out to yourself and to be at absolute peace with that is more important than coming out to anybody else.”

“The British left us Section 377. A law that punished anyone who had “carnal intercourse against the order of nature. What’s order of nature? Love for me is the order of nature. And I am a man, who loves men.”

– Harish Iyer.

“I have been in a heterosexual world all my life and I have not been influenced by heterosexuality, how do heterosexuals get influenced by my sexuality so easily?”

– Harish Iyer.

“About the natural versus unnatural debate, I think we are prejudiced against anything that doesn’t procreate. I strongly feel that sex is natural as much for recreation as it is for procreation.”

– Harish Iyer.

“I was also aware that I would be told that I am gay because I was abused by a man — though women who are abused by men in childhood never state that they turned heterosexual because of rape.”